It is a current trend that future vehicles will be connected. Connectivity provides new means for both safety and convenience applications. Connectivity between vehicles can be realized both through direct communication between vehicles and between vehicles and roadside infrastructure, e.g. using automotive WiFi according to the IEEE 802.11p standard, and also through communication over an existing mobile cell network. Communication in this way may e.g. be via some cloud-based back-end system.
A challenge related to cloud-based communication between vehicles or between vehicles and infrastructure is that many communication messages may need to be routed from the cloud to specific vehicles, often based on the location of the vehicle, i.e. using unicast of messages rather than broadcast of messages.
Previously known solutions to manage distribution of information to vehicles based on the locations of the vehicles have proposed a pattern where the same subset of data, relevant to an area or to a position within the area, is sent to all vehicles within that area. This may be done through applying a grid pattern that defines areas in which the same information is broadcast to all vehicles therein. In this case, the actual communication implementation could be unicast, i.e. cloud-to-one-vehicle, but since the same data is communicated to all vehicles in the area, it is in practice a broadcast. This previously known solution is a relatively rough method since vehicles will receive a fair amount of irrelevant data, including data related to roads that the vehicle is unlikely to travel. This might be relevant e.g. in cases where there are no interconnections between local roads next to a highway road although the roads are close to each other in the same geographical area.
Document US 2014254543 discloses a method for transmitting data between a mobile terminal, such as a mobile terminal in a motor vehicle, and at least one stationary data network. A wireless interface provides a location-dependent transmission bandwidth for mobile access to a stationary data network. To this end, historical values relating to wireless interface parameters for a plurality of locations and for predetermined times are stored in a geo-database. Expected values for future data transmissions are ascertained from stored values. At the outset, a probable route for movement and an estimated arrival time of the mobile terminal (vehicle) at a location along the route are ascertained, i.e. a route of the vehicle is determined for a mobile terminal in the vehicle and it is checked whether a problem may exist with a transmission bandwidth of a wireless interface of the data network along the route. The expected transmission bandwidth at the location is then ascertained based on the geo-database. The geo-database may be a data service provided for the mobile terminal by a server of the least one stationary data network. During the transmission of data, at least one data transmission is regulated in accordance with the transmission bandwidths expected to be available along the route. In this way connectivity of moving terminals connected via air interfaces to the Internet can be improved.
However, although US 2014254543 discloses a general concept for managing bandwidth for data traffic over a cell network, US 2014254543 relate only to how to improve connectivity and dispatch information to one mobile terminal (vehicle) at a time.